Burn
by stormsandsins
Summary: He could lie there all day. In fact, he wanted to. Needed to. After last night, anyone would. Defeat tasted so rank he was disgusted with himself. Leaving Marks 'verse but stands alone too. Prompted.


**Author's note**: This fic is part of a series I based on the drabble123 livejournal community's sex table. The official thing is supposed to be one fandom only, but I'm a non-conformist so I've been playing by my own rules. Namely, that there aren't any. This is far longer than a drabble, for one. For another, like I said, it's multi-fandom. And now I'm including Sky High in there. Thought it fit perfectly with the prompt ;)

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**BURN**

_Off in the night while you live it up I'm off to sleep  
Waging wars to shake the poet and the beat [...]  
You know that I could use somebody  
You know that I could use somebody  
Someone like you_

_- Kings of Leon, Use Somebody_

He could lie there all day. In fact, he wanted to. _Needed_ to. After last night, anyone would. Defeat tasted so rank he was disgusted with himself.

Warren swallowed the taste, the ceiling paint just as peeled as it had been when he'd started staring a hole into it. He tore his gaze away. This wasn't helping.

He could still hear the terrified shrieks – they'd imprinted themselves into his brain. Could still smell the loathsome smell of burning flesh – he still gagged from the olfactory memory.

_Help! Heeeeeelp!_ had cried the hundred – or so it seemed – voices as the building fell on those unfortunate enough to have not been saved first. What was a body able to withstand fire worth in these situations? He might be durable, but even a normally strong body like his couldn't hold an entire multiple-ton building intact to get everyone out. The one man who could have held it up had been unreachable and Warren had been forced to watch the carnage helplessly.

_You will not always be victorious_. Whichever teacher who had imparted that could not have spoken truer words. And yet… still… could someone – a hero at that – truly shake failure off with a sad face and then walk away?

"I'm sorry, mayor," he'd said solemnly last night to the man likely wringing his hands over the phone and dreading the mad media circus in the morning, "there was nothing I could do."

_If only, if only, if only_… A man could score himself a tiny white padded room with such doubts and regrets and grief. Which was why he'd ended up here in the first place.

The shower ran in the bathroom, the irregular splashes on the shitty white tiles and the squeaky shifting of feet on the cheap yellowed porcelain indicating a body in there. The sounds penetrated the ruins in his mind, as did the soft sunlight piercing the blinds across the room. Warren shifted sluggishly, turning his head to the sound of running water – and the blurred body beneath.

Sinuous curves, pale body gleaming, slow – tired – movements under the spray. She twisted, washing suddy shampoo out of her long blonde hair – almost brown as it matted silkily against her head. Temptation. Temptation for comfort for what he heaped on her – without even speaking – last night. God, if he could, he'd go back and not even come here in the first place. But then he'd be a hypocrite, because for all the times he'd been strong for her… he wasn't invincible himself.

_Once, only once_, he'd promised himself. _I'll be stronger next time. I'll _do_ better_. And really, he already felt stronger from the mistake. But the grief? It would take some time to shake, though time was something he couldn't afford to waste in this… line of work.

Warren heard the shower stop, heard the rustling of the plastic Dollar Store curtain and the cheap towel she wrapped around herself, the other around her head like a turban to dry her hair. The porcelain squeaked one last time as she stepped out of the tub. Struggling to sit up, Warren watched her from his vantage point thanks to the angle of the mirror over the chipped sink. She rubbed the fog and moisture from it, then caught his eye.

She stared, sullen. Grief playing with her power, she shivered imperceptibly.

God, why had he come?

Warren's throat closed in on him. "Claire…"

In the next instant he was out of bed and holding her. "Don't," he whispered as she melted between his arms. He tightened his hold on her warming body, stroking, soothing, willing the pity away.

She met his eyes in the mirror, vulnerable concern seeping into him. "Are you okay?" she asked quietly after a moment.

Warren nodded wordlessly, closing his eyes and inhaling her clean scent. Melted, utterly relaxed, even. He almost didn't feel her hand on his cheek or the way she moved minutely within his arms. Just enough to… Her lips touched his, featherlight, and his eyelids opened on contact even as he pressed closer, tightening around her.

The towel in her hair fell away, damp locks falling over his fingers as he brushed a strand aside for easier access to her neck. A sigh ending on a purr fell out of her mouth before she turned within the circle of his arms and brushed a strand of jet hair off his face. "Are you sure?"

_Are you sure you're okay?_ she didn't add.

"Yeah," Warren rasped, cupping her breasts before skimming down and hefting her lightly on the counter. Her legs fell open quite naturally as he stepped in, but it was the quiet, terrified desperation that truly did her in. "I need you, Claire. I just…" He shuddered in memory. "I'm sorry, I don't know…"

She drew in, mouth brushing his. "Shh… let it go," she whispered, hands light over his sides as she drew different shudders – pleasure – out of him. "It's a new day and I'm right here."

Haunted eyes lit on her – in her – as a breath was released harshly and tension bled out of him. "God," he sighed, pulling in for a kiss, "your faith…"

"… is founded." She smiled with her eyes, those beautiful blue eyes. "Because I love you," she murmured against his lips, and laughed as he picked her up again, and locked her legs around him as he did so, and laced her fingers through his as he threw them both onto the bed just outside the bathroom with a feral growl that ripped through her skin deliciously.

Claire burned as he licked and claimed, bit and stroked. _He_ burned, slowed down only by her half-hearted frigid touches. But otherwise, he had free reign as he moved over her, between her legs, a dark and powerful sight that she simply clung to.

Only, she wanted more.

Suddenly, Warren found himself pinned down amid pillows, looking up at the Grecian vision lowering her mouth to his. "I believe in you, Warren," she breathed, arching and finding him and… teasing.

Warren drew in a sharp, ragged breath as his blood roared, heated, burned. What was she talking about?

"You're selfless," she continued, trailing a cooling wet path down his neck. It merely liquefied beneath his skin. "You're just. You always weigh your options." She sat up, pegging him to intensely he could not look away – not that he wanted to. "I _know_ you did everything you could."

"I…"

"Shh…" And she finally sheathed him, so fluidly he moaned and realised belatedly that she'd released both his hands, because they were currently guiding her, digging into the smooth, supple skin of her hips.

He groaned incoherently. God knew what he actually said, because Warren had no inkling.

Humming over him, Claire's eyes closed and her lips parted on a silent cry. She was the most beautiful sight he'd ever beheld as she moved _just so_, very little, merely gentle strokes. He felt each vividly. Needed more. Tugged her down and flipped her over. Drove in deep, fire coiling hard now in his veins and ready to spring forth, only tamped down until now by sheer force of will, and by the continuous light waves of chill sluicing through him. Hers. Now he countered, a rumble working deep within him as he thrust.

"Oh God," she mewled breathlessly, holding on tight. "Don't stop." She was sinuous beneath him even as she reached up.

Warren followed her momentum and sat up on his haunches with her still wrapped around him. If possible, it brought her even closer, skin against skin, and they then moved as one, bodies nearly melding. Pleasure-pain coalesced as both held on for dear life as ice and fire met and melted and hissed at once, just as they did at the very moment.

Later, as she stroked the arm around her and listened to Warren's steadying breaths behind her, Claire snuggled against the extra residual heat thrown by his body. "I wish you'd believe in yourself," she murmured softly enough that, if he had been sleeping – but he was a light sleeper anyway – he wouldn't have heard her.

She felt more than heard his sigh against her nape. "I do," he replied just as softly, "but–"

"No buts."

He smiled in her neck at her steadfastness. "… but I wish I could do much more than I can now."

"Oh…" Claire laced her fingers through his sadly. "You already are."

Everyone has their breaking point, and Claire had experienced more than her fair share of them, had shared them with him so many times they couldn't be counted anymore. Hypocrisy tasted bittersweet.


End file.
